Remember Me
by TheAlabasterPhoenyx
Summary: [HIATUS] Moneta Berkley is a mutant trying to find her way in a world that wants nothing more than to keep her controlled and hidden. As she searches for who she is, she finds that all she knows may not be all there is to life. [Possible Magneto/OC. We'll see what happens.]
1. Chapter 1: Hope

**Hey everybody! I've been away for a while, reading and doing a boatload of homework (still am, actually, but that's beside the point), and I've decided it's long past time for a new story. I'm not quite sure where this is going yet, but I'm aiming for a possible Magneto love story, about ten chapters. We'll see what happens.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men.**

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_Chapter 1 ~ Hope_

The sun wakes me harshly, shining brightly onto my face and blinding me the moment I open my eyes.

Groaning, I slap a hand over my face to block the glare, thus succeeding not only in darkening my face but also hitting it uncomfortably hard. My face now stinging, I stumble out of bed, searching blindly for the curtains.

I manage to close them to the sun, but not after considerable stumbling, crashing, and swearing.

Wiping a hand wearily down my face, I look at the clock to find the minute hand ticking dangerously close to the twelve. I bite out a curse and race around the room, dressing and running out the door in lightning speed.

I skid into the classroom just as the bell rings, still brushing a comb through my hair and blinking the sleep from my eyes.

"Nice of you to join us, Miss Berkley. If you would please take a seat?"

He gestures at an empty chair in the front of the classroom, and I bite back the curse I want to spit at him for his barely-concealed amusement. It is a well-known fact that I can never manage to get up on time, and ever since that stupid alarm clock broke a week ago, I've been late nearly everywhere. I don't need constant laughter at my expense; I know how damn funny I look racing to class with a comb still in my hand and my shoes untied.

"Language, please."

And of course, I'm still half-asleep so I don't remember that this particular professor reads minds and would be able to hear all my bitten-back curses.

What a wonderful way to start the day.

After class, I make to race out the door, eager to return to my room and get back to sleep for a few hours, but a gentle nudge in my mind stays me and I turn to the professor with a groan.

"Yes, Professor?"

"Walk with me?" He wheels out of the room in a specially-designed plastic wheelchair, expecting me to follow. I fall into step next to him as we journey down the hall.

"What is it?"

"How are you holding up?"

My breath catches in my chest because _of course_ that's what he would be asking. Why did I ever think I could escape his notice?

I do not answer, and I steadfastedly do not think about the long nightmare-filled nights and bare few hours of sleep in which I manage to catch rest and memories that are not mine that fill my emotions to bursting.

He looks at me with this look of care in his eyes, and even though I try to look away, I am caught in his gaze.

I stop walking, barraged by a feeling of pain and betrayal so intense it takes my breath away. For a moment I want to fall into the wall and just curl up in a fetal position, clutching my body to try to drive away the pain, but then I take a deep breath and remember that it's not real.

Not for me, anyway.

"What was it this time?"

_I am on a beach panicking they left me how could they leave me am I dying waves of blinding pain rising from my back breath short panicking shadows over me they're gone am I alright? I can't feel my legs I can't feel my legs I can't feel my legs how could they do this to me?_

The professor looks like I just slapped him, backing up an inch with the force and surprise of that painful memory. He says nothing more, just looking at me with something like pity and apprehension and discomfort in his bright kind eyes, and I don't want his pity because this is who I am.

"I make you uncomfortable." It is not a question; it is a statement. It's ironic that I should make a telepath uncomfortable, since our powers are uncannily similar.

"That's absurd, Moneta." But I can feel it in him: the roiling discomfort, the wish to get away from someone who can take and see and judge his worst memories with just a glance in his eyes. "I merely wish to help you control it."

And now he has me intrigued – what if there is a way? What if I could manage some semblance of control over this? What if some day I could look into someone's eyes without the fear of experiencing pain and rage and despair and love and roiling, frothing emotion trying to burn me alive?

"How?"

My name is Moneta Isle Berkley.

I am twenty-four years old.

I am a mutant.

This is the story of how I _lived_.

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**Alright, so that's the first chapter of the first X-Men story I've ever posted online. I've started a fair few, but this is the only one I've gathered enough courage to show off, so please tell me what you all think!**

**We all write to become better writers, so please help with that and give me your thoughts on my writing. (I know, it's a small sample size, but I have four chapters written and [hopefully] more coming)**

**Review! :)**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


	2. Chapter 2: Resentment

**Hello everyone! I'm sorry I lost track of this story. I literally lost track of it - I forgot I posted this. Oops. I've just been really busy with real life.**

**But now I'm going to try to get back into writing! Yay!**

**Enjoy this chapter, everyone.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned X-Men, Charles would not have been so cowardly in the second movie. :)**

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_Chapter 2 ~ Resentment_

Sometimes when I dream I know that it is real, but that doesn't stop me from pretending it isn't.

Charles says that I have to distance myself, build the walls and cage the memories, find myself and tell myself that this man, this child, this corpse, this pain, it isn't me. He says I need to tell myself it isn't real.

He doesn't understand that it _is _real.

For him, he is a person looking into another person's mind. Sometimes he sees everything, sometimes he searches, sometimes he gets flashes and thoughts, but there's always a clear distinction between _him_ and _them_. He knows where he stops and the other person begins, because that's the edge of what he can reach. He touches, but he does not take.

With me, I get the emotions, and emotions are real whether they truly are or not. I become the person in a way so much deeper than telepathy; I am not them, but I am no longer me.

All I can do is hold on to the pretense that I know who I am, that I am just a normal woman, that I can separate _me _from _them_ and wake up with a smile and not a scream.

I think that he knows I am lying now, but there is nothing he can do about it because for such a brilliant mutant, he really doesn't understand sometimes.

"No, really, I'm fine." There's that look again, and instead of holding his gaze I drop it to the glasses in my hands.

_Do you really think these will work?_ I am too afraid to voice my fears aloud, and so I fall back on thinking at him. Even if I have not managed to make much progress on my own mutation over this past year, I have still managed to get much better at controlling the influence his has over me. He cannot hear my thoughts unless I am directing them at him, and I guess that must be something of an improvement.

At least now he can't take those memories from me without my permission.

"I do have faith in Hank's ingenuity," is Charles's response, and I roll my eyes because he's just avoiding my question. Resentment coils like a small little snake in my breast, but I push it away from me and down into the darkness of subconsciousness because this man has helped me so much when no one else would, and I can't afford to mar his image in my mind with this arrogance and discomfort and lack of support I keep sensing in his gaze.

I put the tinted glasses on, pressing the metal to my skin like maybe if I place them on firmly enough, there's no chance they won't work.

As I look deeply into the eyes of the telepath and catch nothing, I should feel exultant that we finally found a way to suppress this dangerous unpredictable ability, but all I can really feel is that snake coming back to bite me because _this is not what I am supposed to do_ _with my gift_ and _why does he insist I work so hard on suppressing when I should be developing it_? He had told me "control" but after a year of work, I think he meant more "rid" because I am a frightful mutant.

Even a telepath is afraid of revealing his secrets to a young woman who cannot control how much emotion she absorbs.

But instead of being truthful I just smile and thank them both because here I am in this haven and they have helped me and they mean well, when all I really want to do is scream and tell them how much I want to die from the emotions but also how _alive_ they make me feel.

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I have finished school now, long overdue after what happened before I came here, and Charles wants me to stay on as a professor. Now that I can control what I can do, he says that I could help the others, provide another example of someone with a dangerous mutation who managed to master it and live a normal life.

I don't tell him that my life isn't normal, that it's spent hiding in dark corners and 'accidentally' misplacing glasses and lying to my friends and living off other people's emotions.

I just smile at him a little sadly.

"I need to go out, Charles. I need to go _live_. I'm really grateful for all your help, and I know that I'm going to miss this place, but I can't stay here forever." And for all his faults, I think he understands.

He might not know how many times I wished to smash these tinted glasses over his head, scream until I can't make a sound, breathe fire into the dark air and burn the world to ashes, love someone so hard it hurts; he might not know just how deeply I need to feel for myself, but he must have some idea how badly I need to do something, make my own memories.

He might not know about the insanity, but he understands the restlessness.

And if part of the reason I'm leaving is because of the rot in this house, in the suppression not control and fear not acceptance, well, he doesn't need to know that either.

"Moneta? We're going to miss you."

I give Hank a hug, and shake Charles' hand, and try to forget how much they never even cared to know who I could be with this mutation well-_integrated _not well-_suppressed_.

I try to remember all the good they have done me, and I must succeed because I can smile at them with genuine feeling as the door shuts inside of me.

"Good-bye, guys. I'll miss you too."

"Are you sure we can't convince you to stay? The students would love to have you teach them."

"No, Charles," I say with that smile that maybe now is from a memory of jubilation and victory and a bright new future, not anything of mine, "I've got to leave all this, start over, live a little. I'm sure you'll see me again."

And with that I refuse to look back as the door shuts not only inside me but also behind me, and I clutch my backpack with shaking eager hands and walk away from that mansion.

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**Thank you for reading! I would love to hear what all of you think. Even one review, guys, please!**

**Thank you to people who have favorited and followed: xXallegedangelXx, loufromearth, Francepaola29. I love you all! You are the reason I remembered about this story. And you are the reason I'm continuing it!**

**Alright everyone, have a wonderful week, and please leave a remark. Even if it has nothing to do with the story. Favorite word? Anything.**

**I love hearing from people.**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


	3. Chapter 3: Determination

**I am really bad at posting, and we are going to leave it at that.**

**Disclaimer: Seriously, if this were mine I would have given Magneto a lot more screen time. As in, the entire movie.**

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_Chapter 3 ~ Determination_

I forced myself to put the glasses away the fifteenth night after I left. With them, I am tempted just to take the easy way out and live with my powers gone instead of knowing how to use them, and I am determined to learn how to use them.

I left that school knowing how to shut myself down, but wanting to know how to control myself. As long as I was there, I couldn't do what I had to do to really gain control of my powers.

So on that fifteenth night, full of resolution to master my mutation after eleven years of fear, I put the glasses in a safety deposit box in a small town somewhere in Pennsylvania.

Walking out of there with a somewhat-pained smile on my face, I am deluged by years' worth of suppressed senses spilling out and taking the emotions from the people around me.

Those glasses were not just tinted lenses keeping me from making eye contact with people; they also emitted an electrical signal that calmed the part of my brain frantic to take the emotion-rich memories of others.

Hank is a true genius, but I need to learn how to do this on my own. The only problem is that after a year of ignoring, suppressing, smothering my power, it is raging to be let loose, and the frail hold I have on it from before the glasses will not be enough now.

I make eye contact with an old lady, and she smiles at me, stepping aside and continuing on her way.

_Stupid mutie bitch_.

I blanch at the pure hatred in that thought, as much at the fact that I heard a thought and not just a memory as at the fact that she hates me so much after only seeing my strange eyes. Maybe those glasses were good for something other than keeping me in check.

My hand brushes against that of a man walking past me on the sidewalk.

_Pleasure darkness she'll kill me if she finds out guilt moaning and please, never stop baby beauty I think I may love you she's going to kill me guilt pleasure._

I had forgotten just how strong these pulses could be.

I stumble against a stone structure, pressing a cold hand against my overheated forehead, trying to push that rush of guilt and pleasure back into a box like Charles showed me how to do. It takes a few minutes, much longer than it should have for a mutant my age who just spent two years at a school learning how to control herself.

And that scares me more than anything else – what if I'm wrong? What if the only way to control this is to use those accursed glasses? What if I just made a huge mistake?

I almost turn right around and retrieve the headware, the fear overcoming me and almost eating me alive.

But the glint of the sun on broken glass at my feet has me staying, staring at the beautiful pattern the shattered bottle makes. I am well aware that people have begun to stare at the strange woman fascinated by litter and sagging against a wall; I am well aware they think I must be tripping.

At the moment, however, I do not care. Beauty is so rare to find in such a raw form, and I am perfectly content to absorb as much of it as I am able.

It is only after the sun has hidden itself behind clouds that I stand up straight again and begin my trek out into the world.

Being such an emotive person, sometimes beauty leaves me feeling like I am going to implode with wonder, and now is such a time. With those glasses, something was always missing from the beauty all around me, and something was in turn missing from within me.

Some things were not meant to be hidden.

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**Sorry everyone, but thanks for reading and I hope to get more time to write and post and get stuff done.**

**It's just - real life has come back with a vengeance.**

**Lots of love,**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**

**PS: Reviews remind me to post. Honest to goodness, they do.**


	4. Chapter 4: Guilt

**Hello everyone! Thank you to everyone who favorited/followed, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

**Disclaimer: Is this story posted on _fan_fiction . net?**

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_Chapter 4 ~ Guilt_

This woman is not my mother, except for the fact that she is.

She birthed me, raised me, wiped away my tears and my blood and my bile, abandoned me when she saw my curse. I would know her face anywhere, and yet I cannot believe that this woman is who she is.

I know for a fact that my mother never visited a castle, let alone died in one with a knife in her back. The _pain sickness despairing I will never see him now maybe the king will understand cold fingers down my back and blood on the tapestries why would they do this to me I knew it would happen eventually agony despair sadness not rage not wrath because that is all over now, useless now_ could never have happened, and yet I have my eyes locked on hers and that is what I am getting.

I would know a memory anywhere – I do not get the wishes or the dreams, only what has happened, what the person has done and seen and lived; now, with such a discrepancy in what I know and what I am being told by this rush of agony and despair, I am questioning everything I've ever been taught about the nature of my power.

I do not know what to think about my mother now.

"Moneta? Is that you?"

Her voice snaps me out of the blood-pain-tapestries-stone memory, and I turn my thoughts back to the person from whom I have been getting these thoughts.

"Mother," I acknowledge, nodding at her with restraint and a bitterness from years in the making. "May I come in?"

She blanches, never having suspected that her estranged daughter would show up on her doorstep after what she had done to be rid of her, and I take the opportunity to slip past her and enter my old house.

Not much has changed, in all honesty, even though it has been more than ten years since they had told me to leave and never come back. The same prints hang on the walls, the same worn red carpet covers the living room floor, and the same well-loved couch sits against the wall. I am struck by a feeling of nostalgia, of returning back in time to when I was young and loved and knew nothing of being alone and estranged.

Then the illusion is shattered by the pattering sound of small feet and the shock of three young bodies skidding to a stop before me, all staring at me with wide blue eyes.

"Jamie, Kyle, Kara, go outside and play. Mommy has a guest." They are confused and curious and just a little bit scared because _screams and crying and someone leaves door slams fuzzy silverbluegrayblack eyes soothing the nightmares away never again_ but they do what their mother says and leave the two of us alone.

I smile at her, a small bitter thing that twists her stomach in guilt, and I can feel the _crying fear what will they think of us how could you be this how could you do this why are we doing this to our baby she's our baby but she's not anymore and fear and guilt and she's not our baby anymore_ and it makes me sick.

"Jamie's an empath too, mother."

She ignores my statement, choosing instead to rush past me and sit in her chair, a worn pink thing that always smelled like roses and comfort.

"What are you doing here, Moneta?"

I sit on the couch, leaning my elbows on my knees and fixing her with the full force of my strange-eyed stare.

"I'm exploring my options."

"What, you need money? Moneta – we can't. You know we can't."

"Can't, or won't, mother?" My glare has her wincing back into her seat, but I can't stomach her _guilt tears why is this happening we can't deal with this not now not ever crying sobbing get out and never come back_ so I put just a bit of that steel in my smile and sit back. "I don't need money. I've done well enough on my own."

She knows me well enough that she does not expect a reconciliation, but still the hope is there in her thoughts of _cooing gurgling Mama crawling adorable blue eyes smiling up at her Mama I love you I know baby_ and every action has an equal and opposite reaction so the twist in my heart isn't hope, it's anger.

"I wanted to see if there's anything left here for me, mother. I knew I never should have come."

"No, you shouldn't!" Now she's angry, because she knows it's her fault but she can't deal with that so over the years she has made it the fault of the little mutant girl who tore her family apart. "You can't just waltz back in here like it's still your house, because _it's not_. I've moved on, Moneta, and you should have too."

My voice is quiet and hurt and trying to find something to stand on because it's drowning and no one really cares enough to try to help.

"You were my mom. I am your _daughter_. You can't just move on."

"Well, I did! And if you know what's good for you, you will too, and you won't ever come back."

I feel such hatred seeping from her pores that I am thrown into _bright eyes smirking scarred heart and scarred face and a knife in my hand riding over the plains wind in my hair dress torn smiling laughing killing because it hurts and revenge revenge driving revenge_.

That was not my mother.

"You are not my mother. You won't see me again."

And she knows I mean it, too, because I had come to see what could be done with this part of my past, if anything could be done with who I used to be, but they threw me out and now she did it again and they're not my family anymore because these people are not like me.

I am not like them.

I am better than they are.

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**Hello everyone! This is the last chapter I have written, and likely will be the last chapter posted until the summer. This is not one of my active stories, and after this I shall be marking it hiatused. My apologies to anyone who favorited, followed, or generally liked this story - you are amazing and I am supremely grateful to you, but I just don't have time.**

**Thank you for reading, and please share your thoughts with me!**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


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